Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Remember my sales summary post last Thursday, when I said that at the pace I was going, I'd be gold capped in about two weeks? Since then, I'd been noticing myself outpacing that, to the point where I woke up to a Halloween miracle today. After logging into each of my alts and checking their mail, I found the little gold summary in the corner of my WoW client reading over 1 million!

Obviously, there was one thing to do before anything else: take a screenshot!

So beautiful, isn't it? After that, I wanted to experience truly being capped, so it was time to once again log onto each of my alts, this time to send all of their hard-earned gold to my Druid.

And a zoom-in on the bags, because I can't make the above pic any bigger without messing up all the formatting of the blog post:

I was a little disappointed by a couple of things. First off, it wouldn't let me open the mail from my last alt, because the amount of gold contained there would have put me over cap. So I had to return that gold (thank goodness for Postal's return button), and instead figure out the exact amount to send to myself that would put me at cap. I also couldn't get the "You can't carry any more gold" error. In fact, I tried vendoring something while at gold cap, and the vendor still took the item, while offering me nothing in return.

Still, I'm finally here. In a way, it's the finish line, but in an another way, it means things are just beginning. I'm playing with the big boys (and girls) now.

I remember one of the first gold-making podcasts I ever listened to was an episode of the Power Word Gold Podcast where Jim and Jokine were discussing the view some people in the gold-making community had, that someone was only worth listening to if they were gold capped. Neither of them believed that (Jim has, in fact, been wonderful as both colleague and resource), but there are still those out there in the community who think that way. So, if any of those people are reading this, I have just one thing to say:

I'm capped now, so pay attention.

There's so much more I could (and will) say about this milestone and the journey that led me here, but for now, I'll simply let the joy of this moment speak for itself as I savor it.
One thing's for sure, though: I may be capped now, but I'm not going anywhere. I hope you'll join me right here for tomorrow's Weekly Sales Summary. Until then, as always, good night and good gold.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Hey there, gold fans! Just a quick weekly sales summary today, like I promised you earlier in the week. I can go on and on about what's been making me a profit, but a picture really is worth a thousand words. Without any further delay, let's get into this week's screencap.

A few things should be noted. In terms of pure sales, Living Steel was the best performer. However, it also has the lowest profit margin, and unless you've got as many alchemists as I do, you're unlikely to have 28 to sell in a week, anyway.

Darkmoon cards are solid, when they sell. Right now, there's a glut of supply, without much demand to eat it up. Expired auctions are common, and a backlog's beginning to build. In the long run, that's fine, as it means more in stock when the fair rolls around. In the short run, though, it does dig into my profits, having to supply 6 Scribes with their Starlight Ink on a daily basis.

Ghost Iron Dragonlings have made it onto the first page, but their profit margin is actually not great. However, each one sold almost inevitably means someone will be buying three Tinker's Gears. Those didn't quite make it to the front page, but with their incredibly cheap mat cost, they're almost entirely profit. ( For example, I sold 13 Smooth Tinker's Gear at 108 gold each. Doesn't sound like much, but each one cost less than 20 gold to make.)

Other than that, results are fairly typical. Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Jewelcrafting are all strong showers. The only reason Tailoring hasn't made an appearance yet is because I have yet to get the Spirits on my tailor to buy the patterns. I should have much more time to do that now, though. My Druid has reached Exalted with Golden Lotus, will reach Exalted with Klaxxi tomorrow, and has reached Revered with the Shado-Pan. Three less sets of dailies means more time to get those alts up and get them their patterns.

How did this all add up in terms of liquid gold?

Current total is 855k, up about 75k from my "I'm Not Dead" post a little less than a week ago. Not a breakneck pace, but certainly not bad either (plus I'm sitting on a rather large pile of Darkmoon cards). If I can keep going at this pace, I could be gold capped in as little as another couple of weeks.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Greetings, gold fans! I hope we're all having fun out there in Pandaria (even if the mass of dailies starts to feel more and more like work). Amidst all of that fun beyond the Mists, however, you're probably wondering how to part your server's population from some of that sweet, inflationary daily gold flowing into the economy.

I'm here to help as best I can, with the profession round-up I promised in my previous post. As always, note that this isn't necessarily a complete list, nor is it guaranteed to work on your server. It's simply a summary of what has and hasn't been working for me in each profession. Take it as an inspiration, then go out there and make it your own.

At the same time, supply seems to be up compared to where Truegold was this soon into Cataclysm. Logically, that makes sense. There's no alternative like there was with Cataclysm's Living Elements. What else are most alchemists going to use that cooldown on?

A few people have suggested attempting to reset the price of Living Steel. I could see that potentially being viable, but after my last experience with resetting, I think I'll play it safe. What I do recommend, however, is taking the time to look at your options and see what's the cheapest way to get your six Trillium Bars. The following options are available:

Hopefully, one of those options will provide you with some savings. Do keep in mind, however, that transmuting your Trillium means a chance to proc extras.

Flasks may also be an option on some servers, though on mine, the profit margins aren't great. Obviously, if flasks are profitable and you do decide to make them, changing your specialization to Elixir Master will help.

Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring

Despite all the new options that have unfolded for these "big three" gear crafting professions, I've definitely had the most success with the same tried and true category: crafted PvP blues. All of the reasons these were popular in Cataclysm still hold true to this generation. More than that, PvP stats are no longer counted against an item's budget of PvE stats, so there's actually no shame this time around in using them to get your ilvl up for heroics.

Now, the factor that somewhat complicates things is, again, the Spirit of Harmony. Thankfully, none of the "Contender's" patterns require Spirits to craft. However, each one costs one Spirit of Harmony to purchase. They're also BoP, and can only be purchased from vendors in your faction's city in Vale of Eternal Blossoms. In other words, don't get too comfy standing around Orgrimmar on these crafting alts just yet, at least not until they have all these patterns. (Your Leatherworker, in particular, will be visiting Pandaria for a long time.)

There is a benefit to these patterns costing Spirits, however. On many servers, there are patterns that are completely missing from the AH. These should obviously be where you focus your attention first. You can't necessarily name your own price (try to keep them in line with the other pieces), but obviously, no competition means anyone buying that piece is buying yours.

Enchanting

For whatever reason, I haven't had much success in Enchanting yet. I think it mostly comes down to the fact that I'm not babysitting the market, and competition is very common, since the only things in play right now are all trainer recipes (and more than that, often used to skill up). My Druid will be hitting Revered with the Shado-Pan tomorrow, so I'm highly considering taking up Enchanting on her until my Mage can catch up, as this would make me the only person selling the high-end weapon enchants.
Other than that, the only real advice I can give for Enchanting is to remember your upward and downward conversions. This keeps the high amount of dust from the Jewelcrafting shuffle from being wasted, can help get you cheaper mats, and can sometimes even turn a profit in and of itself.

There's good news and bad news for Engineers in Mists of Pandaria. The bad news is that, once again, Engineering isn't going to make or break anyone's fortune. The good news is that for once, there's something they can make for gold that's not a vanity item.
The new Ghost Iron Dragonling is a fairly nice, entry-level trinket that actually doesn't require Engineering skill to use. The trinket has no primary stats, but has three Cogwheel slots that can be filled with the newTinker's Gear Cogwheels, which give 600 to a secondary stat of the wearer's choice. It's actually a pretty solid trinket, and versatile enough to be useful to all classes. (Ironically, the ones who benefit the least from equipping it are Engineers, since Cogwheels are unique-equipped and their Engineering helm has two sockets.)

The Dragonlings themselves often have a rather narrow profit margin, but the Tinker's Gears are solid. Then again, it's really tough to be unprofitable when they only take 2 Ghost Iron Bars each.

Inscription

I've got a little confession to make. I hate the glyph market. It's one of those few markets where babysitting the AH is non-negotiable. Particularly after my 5.0.4 reset fiasco (and the literally thousands of glyphs it left me with), it'll take a very major event to get me back into that market. I made enough glyphs to get my Scribes to 600, but that's it.
Still, there's more to Inscription than just glyphs. Most notably, there are Darkmoon Cards. These are realistically what you'll want to do with your Scroll of Wisdom, and with the Ink Trader finally fixed, it shouldn't be too much of a pain getting the Starlight Ink you need.

The first Darkmoon Fair of Mists has come and gone, and I certainly should have been in a good position. I was, as far as I could tell, the only one Horde-side on my server able to scrape together even one trinket, let alone the three I had when all was said and done. In reality, though, I learned a painful lesson about my server: no matter how rare they are, most of the people there just aren't willing to spend above a certain (relatively small) amount of gold on gear. There are only about three progression-minded raiding guilds over here, and only one of those doesn't consider itself "casual".

Eventually, I ended up selling two of the three trinkets to raid members at steep discounts. More specifically, Relic of Chi-Ji went for 50k, while Relic of Yu'lon sold for 20k. While these still more than covered my ink prices (especially since I also ended up with a good two or three dozen other cards), it was still disappointing compared to the 100k+ prices people on other servers reported.

Strangely, though, while no one seems to want to buy the trinkets outright, there are plenty of people buying up individual cards. I suppose a few k at a time seems a lot more palatable. The decision then becomes one of selling the cards now, or waiting until the next fair?

Certainly, cards tend to go for higher amounts during the fair, as people scramble to complete decks. However, as we get ready for Heart of Fear/Terrace of Endless Spring to open, that means more trinkets coming into the game, which lowers the value of the DMF trinkets, and consequently, the cards that compose those decks. It's a calculated risk either way, to be sure, but for what it's worth, I've chosen to start selling mine now. Realistically, I'll probably have some left when the fair rolls around again.

Jewelcrafting

As always, this one's a real gem (pardon the pun).Despite the MoP green jewelry taking more gems than its Cataclysm counterparts, the shuffle is still generally alive and well. Then again, it's not uncommon lately for me to find ore under 5 gold per ore (a price I would've been happy with even through most of Cataclysm), so at that price, it's hard not to make a profit. Obviously, this will vary from server to server.

Also, while there's no real need to level your Jewelcrafter, be sure to take them for a quick trip to Jade Forest to pick up all the cuts that use Serpent Eyes. Mai the Jade Shaper is just sitting around Greenstone Village, not phased or anything. She'll teach you all of those cuts as well as the ilvl 450 jewelry that uses Serpent Eyes, such as Band of Blood.

(If you have some spare time or are going to level up that character anyway, you can go killing things in Pandaria for your meta gem cuts, but it's by no means required, and certainly not a big component of Jewelcrafting profit.)

Generally, after I've prospected all my ore, the first thing I'll do is take care of restocking any of that ilvl 450 jewelry I've sold. After that, I'll take any rare gems left over and take a look at the Jewelcrafting page over at The Undermine Journal for my server. As I look at each gem color, if I have a cut that's currently selling for more than the raws (and I don't already have a bunch on the AH), I'll make that cut. For the first color I encounter that I don't have a profitable cut, I'll use my daily cooldown in hopes of discovering one. Everything else, I sell raw for now.

Lastly, the uncommon gems are used to make Shadowfire Necklaces and Ornate Bands. Any blues get put on the AH for around 200 gold. The rest get sent off to my Enchanter for DEing. As I mentioned, though, the Enchanting business is a little slow, so I'm starting to sell some of the mats raw for now to prevent having a bunch of overstock.

Conclusion

As you can see, just about every profession has something to explore and a way to make gold in Mists. In fact, this post ended up much, much longer than I had planned, with each category being almost long enough to be a post on its own. Still, hopefully that gives you some ideas.

On Thursday, I'll be starting my weekly summary posts again, so you'll be able to get an idea of exactly what's been making the most gold for me. Until then, it's off to bed for me, so I can wake up in time to do all the things I need to do daily in-game.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

That's right! I'm still here! I'll admit to feeling a bit guilty that it's been almost a month since Mists of Pandaria has come out, and I'm only now writing my first blog post about it. There's certainly no lack of things to discuss. The problem is just the opposite, in fact. There's so much that most of my free time is spent actually doing it.

I think this is a common phenomenon among the blogging community. Most of my favorite bloggers have done a post or two, but nothing like the torrent I half-expected to bombard my RSS feeds. People are ironically so busy in Azeroth, there's not enough time left to write about it.

A lot of what's keeping us busy is great. The questing in Pandaria is top-notch, even if my main experienced it as a sleepless 48-hour blur to 90 (I had done it all in beta, including the finished Jade Forest, just so you don't think I took the great questing and story work for granted). I had, against my earlier judgment, decided to start the expansion with dual gathering (Mining and Herbalism), hoping the extra experience would mean getting to 90 quicker. In fact, I actually think it hurt me, as time spent running to and collecting nodes distracted me from quests. The gathering XP was also rather underwhelming, particularly at higher levels.

Much as I rushed to 90, by the time I was there, the Realm First professions had long been done. The initial demand for my gathered mats had come and gone; prices were declining much more rapidly than anticipated. Given that, I decided to use those materials to level my own professions. There was enough to get my Alchemists all started on their daily Living Steel transmute and my Scribes all started on their daily Scroll of Wisdom cooldown.

And let's not forget that once you reach max level, that's where the game truly begins. In this case, the name of the game is dailies. Oh, gods...so many dailies. In theory, these should be sorted by priority. Blacksmiths will want to jump right into the Klaxxi dailies (which can actually be started at 89). For Leatherworking, Tailoring, and Enchanting, you'll want to get started ASAP on Golden Lotus, since you'll either want Golden Lotus themselves, or one (or in the case of Enchanting, both) of the twofactions gated behind Revered Golden Lotus rep. Obviously, there are pieces of gear unique to each faction as well, but those will vary by class and are better covered by various class blogs out there.

Amidst all the craziness, make sure you don't forget the Tillers, either. While their quest line can be started as early as 85, it's another one of those things that only really opens up at 90. At that point, you can begin earning rep with them. Simply harvesting your crops each day will yield a bit of rep, but to speed the process along, we've got...more dailies! These are generally a bit quicker and easier than any of the other dailies, with regular quests interspersed a bit more frequently. You'll want your Tiller rep up ASAP, so that you can unlock more plots and the ability to grow Motes of Harmony.

(Note that within the Tillers rep, there are also individual Tillers members, who have their own friendship bars going from Stranger to Best Friend. While getting these up eventually can be fun, the rewards for doing so are almost entirely cosmetic. They do not affect your main Tillers rep in any way.)

Now, while it's best to prioritize and make sure you know what to do first each day, the reality is that, time permitting, you may want to do them all each day. It's time consuming, but I know that personally, between raiding and gold making, there's not a single one of the factions listed here that doesn't still offer me some advantage. At least I should be exalted with Golden Lotus and Klaxxi in a few more days, so that should cut down on the daily load considerably.

One thing I definitely recommend is that when you do your dailies, particularly if you're going to do all of them, you bring a friend. Between killing things faster and talking while you quest (either in person or over Vent or some other voice program), the dailies go by much quicker than if you're alone. This also tends to help prevent burnout, as well as keeping you accountable on the very likely occasion that you're tempted to skip a day.

Now, I was actually going to continue this post by going into an in-depth discussion of what I'm doing with all of my professions, but this post has already gotten a little on the long side, so expect another post within the next couple of days instead. Also, I realized today that MySales has been off since 5.0.4 launched. I've corrected that problem, so you can look forward to weekly summary posts again starting next week. For now, I'll simply show I have been doing fairly well, by posting a liquid gold summary:

We're practically coming into the home stretch at this point, and I've passed the 750k milestone, if that's even a thing. How am I getting there? I'm afraid I'll have to leave you in suspense for now, but check back soon. Who knows? It could be up as soon as I finish tomorrow's dailies.